Code cannot come before UX. Design the experience before you code it. Art takes time and has to be at the core of your product/service. If you don’t have a designer as one of your first three team members, well, in my humble opinion, you’re already in trouble.

To illustrate, here are some details I assess when every new venture comes my way: Email structure, word choice, the signature, the amount of deck slides, the weight of the presentation, whether the dollar sign is placed before or after the amount, the choice of stock photography backdrops, whether MS Clipart was used, the thickness of the business card, the choice of typography, even the entrepreneur’s choice of laptop and phone.

All of these go to the heart of our assessment the product/service, the team and the venture as a whole.

It’s about the sizzle, which is UX. It sells the product. If you don’t have a great UX, investors have to be aware there are going to be many, many other costs, like additional marketing, to make a product successful.

Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with high employee involvement, strong internal communication, and an acceptance of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve new levels of innovation.

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If there’s any doubt about the value of investing time in culture, there are significant benefits that come from a vibrant and alive culture:

Focus: Aligns the entire company towards achieving its vision, mission, and goals.

Motivation: Builds higher employee motivation and loyalty.

Connection: Builds team cohesiveness among the company's various departments and divisions.

Cohesion: Builds consistency and encourages coordination and control within the company.

Spirit: Shapes employee behavior at work, enabling the organization to be more efficient and alive.

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Look at Zappos, one of the fastest companies to reach $1 billion in recent years, fueled by an electric and eclectic culture, one that’s inclusionary, encouraging, and empowering. It’s well-documented, celebrated, and shared willingly with anyone who wants to learn from it. Compare that to American Apparel, the controversial and prolific fashion retailer with a well-documented and highly dysfunctional culture. Zappos is thriving and on its way to $2 billion, while American Apparel is mired in bankruptcy and controversy. Both companies are living out their missions–one is to create happiness, and the other is based on self-centered perversity. Authenticity and values always win.

Great post. It has answers from some of the leading UX practitioners, some of whom don’t have a degree.

"A degree or a certificate isn't going to magically get you respect, make you employable, get you on the speaker circuit, cure acne, or make you more attractive to the love of your life. A degree is not going to instantly improve your UX skills. Only lots and lots of practice can do that. All of the employers of UX professionals that I know-myself included-are looking for experience first and above all. However, that doesn't mean a degree is useless.”

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"Of course, having a degree gets you past foolish HR departments that require a degree. However, remember that people who require a degree also look at applicants' experience. The most experience wins-the degree just lets you take part in the race.”

Also, ping me if you’re a visual designer or user experience designer in Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York. Recruiter friends of mine have 10 jobs open. Send me an email at pat@usabilitycounts.com.

The Senior Interactive Designer is responsible for developing impactful design options and user interfaces in multiple platforms, including the development of prototypes, selling these ideas internally and to clients, and guiding the execution of these ideas across digital media.

Required Experience

Bachelors Degree in Graphics Design preferred or equivalent creative art background with programming capabilities, and 5+ years as an interactive designer in a professional environment

In A Software Design Manifesto, Mitch Kapor argues that the most important social evolution within computing professions would be to create a role for the software designer as a champion of user experience. He defines a designer as someone who stands with a foot firmly in two worlds – the world of technology and the world of people and human purposes – and brings the two together. Although over 15 years old, Kapor’s argument holds strong to this day. Designers need engineering skills and technical understanding so they can continue to stand with feet in both worlds.

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The successful designer founders we’ve seen are consistently multidisciplinary – they have the full range of skills necessary to make decisions about product design and work with a development team to execute on those decisions. Their skills range from user research, to interaction design, to information architecture, to communication design, to writing. They may not be experts in all areas, but they can “wear all the hats” in the early days of a startup and attract specialists when needed.

Designer founders understand the technology commonly used to build software products and the business methods used to market and evaluate those products. As a designer, design skills are important – but as a founder, technology and business skills are critical to lead not only product design but an entire company.

If you’re in User Experience, there’s no other place like the Bay Area.

There are thousands and thousands of jobs and, seemingly, that many job openings. All the great product stuff gets done here — which means you won’t have to do silly micro sites or get as many stupid questions like, “Hey, can you write code too?” The Bay Area is a manageable size, more so than a Los Angeles or New York.

That’s read: If I have never have to sit on the 405 at Manchester Avenue trying to get to Santa Monica in under two hours, it won’t be too soon.

It’s not my dream place. Vancouver or Portland are, but for different reasons. I’m living the true San Francisco experience — my apartment was built in 1915; I’m two blocks from Golden Gate Park; and I live in a neighborhood that you only enjoy if you love fog and hate sunlight, which eternally pleases me.

It’s not for everyone, or maybe it is. If your New Year’s resolution is to settle on the Left Coast, here’s a few tips and things to consider before you pack up the U-Haul and leave for the city by the bay.

There are a lot of jobs here and a huge shortage of truly talented people.

About two and a half years ago, I was interviewing with Microsoft for the typical social media/user experience consulting gig. I asked them, “So, where would you like me to move?” They hinted toward San Francisco, and it took me three milliseconds to make the choice.

I moved, and it was the best decision I have ever made.

The recruiters were literally begging me to move. So move, I did. I really wanted out of Los Angeles pretty badly. There’s not a lot of product work down there, the user experience environment is built more toward agencies, and the culture is kind of less about doing great work.

Other than being total A-list talent, it wasn’t as hard to stand out (and get interviews) as you would think. You do have to bring your A-game; but as long as you have a solid resume and a decent portfolio, it’s easy to get in the door. You won’t be able to fake your way through it, or if you do, you’ll have a series of one year gigs. There are plenty of places willing to take these people, but they aren’t very stable.

As an agency professional once told me, “The best people are in-house now.” That’s true. The agencies struggle up here to keep talent, because the payoff to work for a startup is so strong.

A few Los Angeles user experience professionals called me, and I recommended they should get up here as quickly as possible. Some of my ex-Angelino peeps are at some really cool companies or founded their own (Yammer, Blurb, Oink, Gogobot)… or, “So how’s MySpace hangin’?”

The hardest thing was getting in the door at the first place. After you establish street cred, you’re golden to stay here as long as you want.

Sunnyvale is not San Francisco, and eBay isn’t a startup.

Deciding where to live in the Bay Area is almost as important to your career as it is to your personal life. Are you looking to break into Yahoo or eBay, or do you want to join some hot startup? The rules are bit like this: most of the large companies are down on the peninsula; and the hipper startups are closer to San Francisco. A younger crowd tends to gravitate to San Francisco as a city, and companies build their talent pools and company cultures around this.

It is quite a culture difference.

Last weekend, I was down in Sunnyvale, which is fine for a lot of people. However, it’s surburbia. Leaving the party I was at, I was matching street corners to places in Orange County or the San Fernando Valley. Some people like suburbs, but it’s not for me at this time in my life.

Decide what kind of company you want to work with, and where you get to live will kind of match. San Francisco is way too far from most of the larger companies to make the commute, but you’re probably looking for different things.

If you decide to move to San Francisco, there’s a neighborhood for you.

I live in Inner Sunset, which is best known as the former world headquarters for Craigslist. They moved, but the site literally reflected the neighborhood — an unpretentious place where you have everything you would ever need and would forget why to go to other places. A lot of doctors in training live here because UCSF is up the hill, so it makes for a comfortable, smart neighborhood.

The standard joke is you can just look at someone and figure out what neighborhood they should live in. I’m more of a North Beach guy (I lived there for a year and a half just to say I lived there). Inner Sunset is a slower place but still has all the conveniences I like: easy cab access, decent parking and a good enough pizza after 9pm. There’s a bus stop (I kid you not) downstairs from my place, and the N-Judah is a block away.

When you visit, get a local to give you a tour of the city. Ask them to bring them to neighborhoods you would like. Request to visit their favorite haunts. Everyone has one or two (mine is Tony Nik’s). It’s a town that you can lose yourself in.

That said, San Francisco isn’t perfect. This a city that isn’t as clean as it could be, and the city government seems to waste more money than it spends wisely. The homeless population makes walks through certain neighborhoods an obstacle course. Muni, the mass transit system, varies from amazing (I can get into downtown in 20 minutes) to the absurd (There are fights, and it’s unreliable at times). And don’t get me started on the cabs.

It all depends on what you want. If you want a city, San Francisco is one in spades. But if you want the suburbs, better to move down to San Mateo or Mountain View. You can always visit the city and retreat back safely.

Tolerance is key, both in culture and ideas.

You’ll hear a lot of startup ideas: good ones, bad ones, copycat ones. But everyone has an idea. Everyone has come here to reinvent themselves; and if you want to do it, this is as good of a place to do it than anywhere else.

It reflects what San Francisco and the Bay Area is: a place where people can be almost anything they want to be. That’s why San Francisco is such a city of neighborhoods because each one fits a person perfectly in their time of life.

Each neighborhood is also much more diverse than you would think: Castro isn’t always about the LGBT population; the Tenderloin is gentrifying; and there’s at least one person that didn’t go to Stanford that lives in the Marina. But the neighborhoods do have their constituencies, and they demand respect.

It’s not as expensive as you would think.

This is not a cheap place to live.

San Francisco is one of the few places where’s it’s normal to have roommates well into your late 30’s because apartments are so expensive here. Average home prices on the peninsula have survived much of the housing slump. Because of the current tech boom, finding an apartment in the city is a combat sport (be first or be gone). When I moved up here in 1996, I had to go through ten apartment interviews to find a roommate, and I hear those times are back.

Once you get past some of the high rents and the need to budget for parking tickets, it’s not that much more expensive. In fact, going out to get a great meal can be sometimes cheap; and if you move to the right neighborhood, there’s no need to have a car.

You’ll see a pay increase from just about anywhere in the United States unless you’re in some cushy job where you are now. And when you move here, you’ll be renting anyway. If you decide to settle here, you’ll get a real taste of California real estate, but that can wait after you’ve made your first million, right?

Check out the meetups, but look to Twitter to do the real networking.

I was at a meetup about a year ago having a beer with one of the attendees. He was a smart guy. About mid-way into the conversation. He paused.

“You know, if you had a full tank of gas, you could eat and drink for free for a month by going to meetups and events. That’s if you could put up with the people.”

I did a search on meetup.com and found a staggering 210 events in the next month matching a search for “technology,” But your mileage may vary. Most of the meetups seem to be attended by a) people hiring (which is good), b) people looking to break into the industry (which may not be good), and c) people that hold the meetups on the oft chance they’ll get the next great gig and it’s more about them than building the community (which sucks).

The people that are super talented are a) too busy to go to meetups or b) can’t figure out the return on investment. The valley also is relatively spread out, so you never see everyone you want to meet.

In the Bay Area, I would look to Twitter to network. The real leaders in the space here seem to use Twitter as their broadcast channel, and it’s much easier to engage in conversations. What makes this easier is that you can engage in conversations like, “Hey, I would like to move there, what’s it like?” and “Are you hiring?” before you get here. It’s cheaper. And trust me, this works. I hired a designer this way

In his presentation at An Event Apart, Jared Spool detailed the importance and role of links on Web pages. Some notes:

On the Walgreen's site, 21% of people go to photos, 16% go to search, 11% go to prescriptions, 6% go to pharmacy link, 5% go to find stores. Total traffic is 59% for these five links. The total amount of page used for these 5 links is ~4% of page space. The most important stuff on the page occupies less than 1/20th of the page.

This violates Fitts's law. The bigger and closer, the easier a target is to hit. So we're often using the real estate of Web pages poorly.

Product manager win is using the screen space on Web sites to communicate “messages” people don’t care about.

Make real estate reflect the importance of links. Link copy needs to communicate what the user will get. The links have to take the user to where they want to go.

Nobody goes to a Website just to visit. They have a reason. Trigger words serve the goal of the user. They trigger the user to click/take an action. When trigger words are well done, they get the user to the content they want and signal where to click.

It's easy to know when your website scent is bad. Use of the back button, pogo-sticking, and using search are all signs that the scent of your links is off.

Usage patterns are the same across all websites. In 15 years (and thousands of sites) things have not changed much. Only 42% find what they are looking for. 58% do not find what they are looking for. For these people the scent is not coming through.

Technology dictates the activity. In turn, the activity dictates the design. When the design is appropriate for the technology, people accept it, regardless of culture. Consider musical instruments as a good example. Many are difficult to learn, such as the violin that requires an awkward, injury-prone posture and hand configuration. Consider the awkward fingering of musical instruments across the world. People learn these with incredible skill, not because they fit the body, but because the designs seem quite appropriate to the technology, and therefore to the activity.

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There are regional differences. Food and eating provide dramatic contrasts with different cultures adopting very different behavior. Some use silverware, some chopsticks, and some use fingers or bread. Some cultures prefer more ornamentation than others, so that, for example, products intended for East Asia display decorative scrolls and artwork. When the same products are sold elsewhere in the world, they are often identical except for the removal of the ornamentation. Style differences? Yes. Fundamental differences? No.

A presentation by Jon Fox for IdeaLab and Ubermedia on the benefits of simplifying products and how to achieve better results through design. Contains the video “I Luv UX Design” found at iluvuxdesign.com. All artwork from that video produced by addikt.

Will the next generations learn that software development is the next big opportunity and has been for years?

There is a new opportunity emerging for young people to do productive, entrepreneurial, satisfying work: they can learn to code. Code isn't that hard to start to learn – one outsourcing firm takes people with no training and makes them full-time Java programmers in 3 months. (Of course, mastery takes tremendous talent and craft.) Coding isn't expensive – with netbooks, cloud hosting and storage, and open source software. Beyond a certain point, coders are self-taught, and can continue to advance their skills.

They're handing out Gutenberg printing presses out there: with services like Treehouse (I'm a dues-paying member) and Codecademy (and its expertly-timed year of code), countless university courses free online, Google Code University, the warm embrace of Stack Overflow, in-person courses like Dev Bootcamp, summer camps for kids, even the promise of a one-day result with Decoded (the six-minute abs of learning to code), and great organizations like CodeNow (which I've been supporting) reaching out to teach code in underserved communities. I'm sure I've left many out.

Twitter can be a great B2B or B2C marketing tool; however, just like any social networking site, it has its share of idiots. There are sad and lonely souls in this world – people with mental illness and delusions of invincibility. When those individuals find an opportunity to express themselves in horrible ways, they take it.

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My normal advice is simple. You have a choice to ignore, respond to or block someone. If you feel something illegal has happened or your employee is at risk, call the police. Most fears are overstated. Focus on creating relationships and nurturing your most loyal fans. The offensive tweets are no big deal.

And the best way to mitigate social media risks? Follow the rules listed below as defined by The Starr Conspiracy.

So my advice still stands for B2B and B2C engagement on all social networking sites.

Every web app needs someone talking to the customers regularly. It’s their job to know exactly what’s going with all types of customers, new, old, free, paying. What excites them, bothers them, how often they’re using the product, is the feature getting usage, if not why not.

It’s their job to answer “What-Ifs” and “I wonders” from the product team. This is how you spot issues before they cost you hard-earned customers. Metrics junkies are obsessed with details like Cost Per Acquisition, it’s worth remembering that it’s investing in customer loyalty and retention can be far more valuable. Buckets fill up far quicker than sieves.

You should be able to talk to your customer:

Frequently – the more they talk with you, the more loyal they become

Easily – If it’s easy to do, chances are it’ll get done more often

Openly – let it be clear to your customers that they can complain or questions decisions, as their opinion is what matters

In Context – Talk to users as they use your app, not outside of it. The difference in what they say is remarkable.

There’s nothing worse than sitting in meetings and hearing the words “I think” and “Let’s just get a bunch of people in a room and come up with features” when developing a product.

You have to talk to customers to understand the context of their environments, to learn what the challenges they face and how they solve them. This isn’t market research, this is understanding your customer. For example, there’s this fallacy that Apple doesn’t talk to their customers to discover new markets. They don’t do market research, which is different. They do leak information and create opportunities (i.e. allow jailbreaking of phones) to see how the market will innovate.

Because you’re not Apple and you are likely not selling a similar set of products, you must do research to understand the customer. And, while I’m sure Jobs says he doesn’t do research, it’s pretty clear that his team goes out to thoroughly study behaviors and interests of those they think will be their early adopters. Call it talking to friends and family; but, honestly, you know that these guys live by immersing themselves in the hip culture of music, video, mobile, and computing.

The point is not to go ask your customers what they want. If you ask that question in the formative stages, then you’re doing it wrong. The point is to go immerse yourself in their environment and ask lots of “why” questions until you have thoroughly explored the ins and outs of their decision making, needs, wants, and problems. At that point, you should be able to break their needs and the opportunities down into a few simple statements of truth.

And, in a lot of ways, Apple employees are their own customers. They are designing products they would buy, because they are the target audience. They buy the products, and use them.

So, have you tried talking to your customers? Have you tried using your product?

Turns out there is this whole other profession, born, it seems, mostly from the marketing discipline, who have an active interest in orchestrating company wide good experience for their customers. They are experienced in making strong, financially driven business cases to management at the highest level, getting decent budgets and then investing in infrastructure that enables an organisation to deliver good customer experience.

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Reading some of their books (I particularly enjoyed this one) it strikes me that they have a much more mature and structured way to approaching company wide good experience than we User Experience people (generally) do.

Similarly, in reading what they write about, it is disturbing how little reference Customer Experience people make to User Experience people. I've come across several references to human factors and usability, but you'll almost never find Customer Experience and User Experience in the same book/article/room.

We should be working together, but I think we don’t because a) it’s in Customer Experience’s best interest to drive to conversation and have User Experience types under them (probably as they should), and b) CX types have done a better jobs defining the value proposition, especially in defining their title (what’s more important than the customer?).

Most Customer Experience professionals understand sales, marketing and customer support better (all touchpoints essential in Customer Experience), so they have a better grasp on how the business provides value. We tend to be siloed in our experience.

The post talks about User Experience folks have done a poor job explaining how to provide value, other than saying, “it’s part of the process.” We have to show real world examples other Apple. That’s our challenge for 2012.

…and not just for people that I interview. I’ve seen a couple hundred in the last year, mostly because I work at Jobvite, I figure out how they parse and look at better ways of displaying them. Resumes are the first things most recruiters and hiring managers look at to see if you are qualified for a job (I tend to look at a portfolio first).

Because of my day job and my constant banter with recruiters I talk to during job interviews, I do a lot of research about the hiring process. Now is a good time to start looking (new budgets, improving economy and cool start-ups on the Jobvite Facebook application).

I can’t speak to everyone’s preferences but in this post I’ll describe some of the patterns I see over and over again regarding what recruiters want and a few tips to avoid the pitfalls of getting the wrong job interviews. This stuff isn’t rocket science and getting a job shouldn’t be. First and foremost, make sure that your resume and LinkedIn profile are in tip top shape.

Include the basics

Your odds go up exponentially if there’s a way to contact you.

Even the SAT test awards you 200 points for writing your name correctly. Consider the basics as an extra bonus point. The following items are required at the very top of your resume:

Name

Email Address

Phone Number

LinkedIn Profile

Optionally, I would include a Twitter Feed and Blog addresses, if you have them. They should be work related (i.e. not 35 photos of you getting drunk in Tijuana).

Including only an email address is annoying when I have to get a quick clarification on your background. Picking up the phone is still the best way of reaching people (sorry, millennials). Most hiring managers use the phone as a primary means of communication.

This information should be a standard format (periods between numbers in a phone number don’t parse well). Applicant tracking systems that parse email addresses and phone numbers are looking for patterns, not creativity.

Also, make sure hyperlinks go to the right place. I sent my resume format to a friend, and I was getting her emails because one of the systems parsed out my email address in a hyperlink and used it as her primary email address.

Don’t be cute

Just because you can design an infographic doesn’t mean it belongs in a resume.

Most companies use applicant tracking systems, which keep track of candidates in the interview process. These systems are parsing your resume so they are searchable, so if you upload the resume with tons of graphics, it’s not going to parse. The wackier the layout, the worse the text is going to appear in the system. Combine that with how PDFs can be structured (or not, if a designer uses a PNG that can’t be parsed at all), and you get the idea.

Do not include any wacky graphics or some over-designed timeline that is a hopeless copy of Facebook’s timeline. When I interview people, I might want to see a gracefully designed infographic if you’re a visual designer. However, unless you’re Nicholas Felton, you probably don’t have the skills to come up with something that’s going to wow them. Leave that to your portfolio.

In a pinch, I would have a resume formatted in plain text so it looks good even in a plain text email.

List skills and who you’ve worked with first

I list Previous Clients and my Skill Set before the position so recruiters and hiring managers don’t have to read further down the resume. That’s an instant winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Here’s what they equate it to: Wireframes, Usability Testing and Personas. Throw in some HTML/CSS prototyping, and voila, you’re a user experience designer.

If you have the skills at the very top of your resume, the recruiter will know exactly what you can do. They will copy and paste that list into an email straight to the hiring manager. The person viewing your resume might look at a couple of the most recent positions, but they have to know that your skill-set matches something that the hiring manager has told them. The very best recruiters will understand.

Frankly, it will also help you avoid jobs you don’t want, like if they’re looking for someone who can also code Java (Drink).

Even better, list some of the brands you’ve worked with at the very top because it works. When recruiters and hiring managers have to ask who you’ve worked with and what projects you’ve been on because they can’t find it, your resume has failed.

Don’t list every position

I summarize who I’ve worked with as a consultant and use a bullet point for previous client I want to focus on. Brief and to the point.

User experience designers tend to have a lot of contract gigs, which make for very long resumes.

One of my favorites is Karl Smith in the United Kingdom, because I use him as an extreme use case for Jobvite. He tends to work a lot of short stints because he’s a high level consultant, and it’s important to his clients that they see the breadth of his experience.

If you aren’t Karl, that can work against you, especially if you’re under five years of experience.

I compress the contract gigs that I’ve worked at under “being a consultant” because that was what I was: brought in to work on very specific projects with a contained time frame to achieve a specific result. I list what I did in condensed format, and what I accomplished. It gives the recruiters and hiring managers a good overview of your experience without overwhelming them with information.

Going forward, It’s also best to work on projects that launch. When you’re choosing your contracts, you’ll have to use your spidey sense (we all have it), if the founders are nuts or if the idea will result only in poor execution. There’s nothing worse than having a resume full of projects that fail (I interviewed someone that was on three failed projects in a row) because that reflects directly on your skills.

List projects with URLs

The first thing I want to do is see your work. I can only do that if I have URLs.

Sometimes that’s not possible, because you’re working at Cisco on an internal project, or the project was killed either before or after launch (I have a couple of Move.com projects that went by the wayside). But it’s always interesting to compare the wireframes and user research to the final product.

This is also really effective if you’ve worked at the same company a long time (defined as over three years in my mind) and need to show more than one or two positions on your resume. You can also list the projects as separate entries under the same job position to show breadth of experience.

Use real numbers whenever possible

Each position highlights my responsibilities and the real numbers behind them.

The best thing about this job is when we’re done, we should have something to show.

Wireframes, research and other artifacts — most of those play well in Peoria with hiring managers. The next best thing is that if you are able to do a great job, you’ll be able to say, “Hey, resume went up 300 percent because of my changes.” If you have numbers, use them. That’s the best way to back up you know what you’re doing.

Because our field is so new, there are a lot of snake oil salespeople that don’t have the skills to back up what they say. If you have something to back up your work, it’s awesome. I list what my responsibilities were, and how it translated into real results.

Don’t lie

User experience design is a very small field, and there’s a good chance you’re going to run into someone. It’s even better not to lie, because someone will call you on it.

True story: one place I worked at, I was interviewing a candidate. During the interview, I figured out that a previous hiring manager was someone that worked with me, and we “made the introduction.” We didn’t hire the candidate.

And then their significant other submitted the same portfolio.

Another true story: Two separate project managers I was considering managed the same project at the same time. There’s no possible way I could interview either of them.

Be honest about your impact on projects. It’s fine to say you were on a team, but don’t tell people you are the lead if you aren’t.

Hire a copy editor

They’re inexpensive for what the return on investment is — $200 for two hours when you’re applying for positions that could be well into the six figures. There’s no excuse not to, especially since that’s our occupation. Why wouldn’t you do it for the resume?